Breakdown of Kolme päättäjistä ei halua delegoida työtä.
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
kolme
three
työ
work
haluta
to want
delegoida
to delegate
päättäjä
the decision-maker
Questions & Answers about Kolme päättäjistä ei halua delegoida työtä.
Why is päättäjistä in the elative case here?
It translates to "of the decision-makers". When you want to express a subset or proportion of a specific group, Finnish uses the elative case (-sta/-stä). Since we are talking about a plural group of decision-makers, it takes the plural elative ending -istä.
The English translation says "Three [...] do not want", which is plural. Why does the Finnish sentence use the singular verb ei halua instead of the plural eivät halua?
In Finnish, when a number (other than yksi) is the main subject of a sentence, the verb must be in the singular. Even though kolme refers to multiple people, the grammar treats the number itself as a singular subject, so the negative verb is the singular ei rather than the plural eivät.
Why is the object työtä in the partitive case?
Työtä is the object of the verb delegoida (to delegate). Because this is a negative sentence (ei halua delegoida), the object must be in the partitive case. An incomplete or negated action always requires a partitive object.
How is the word päättäjistä formed?
It comes from the verb päättää (to decide). Adding the maker suffix -jä turns it into the noun päättäjä (decision-maker). To say "out of the decision-makers", we add the plural marker -i- and the elative case ending -stä, resulting in päättäjistä.
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